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Tune-Yards Make a Splash on 'Tonight Show' With 'Water Fountain'

Band brings first 'Nikki Nack' track to late night

tUnE-yArDs dropped their third album, Nikki Nack on Tuesday, so it was only fitting that they ended the week by hitting TheTonight Show with one of their infectious new tracks and several sets of gigantic googly eyes.

Merrill Garbus and company unleashed the high-energy "Water Fountain," the first single off the new album, on Fallon's show, starting the performance off with an extended hand-clapped intro before kicking in with the close vocal harmonies and additional percussion.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Garbus noted that the ideas behind the song came in part from a cultural exchange trip to Haiti that she took with the Oakland-based drumming and dance group Rara Tou Limen. "That's a through line in all of my music — where the syncopation comes from. In 'Water Fountain' it's the 3/2 against the 2/3," she said. "It's just cool rhythmic games, essentially."

tUnE-yArDs just completed a run of dates with Arcade Fire and played a show at Brooklyn's Rough Trade on Wednesday. They're about to head off for a string of European dates starting in London on Monday before returning to the U.S. in time for the Sasquatch Festival at the end of the month.